Actually, the Turks did not fill population losses.
The italians, greeks, yugoslavians, spaniards and portuguese did.
The turks only started arriving in large numbers AFTER reconstruction was complete in the late 60s, basically due to retention of the guestworker laws, even though no one was needed anymore, mostly filling low wage jobs, while the original guestworkers from european countries worked in the industry.
But it is really strange that 7 years after 911, it is still treated as a national trauma:
In my vicinity, there's a medium sized town called Darmstadt. It had some chemical industries and Princess Alexandra of Russia was born there, but apart from that, wholly unremarkable.
That town was terror bombed in September 1944. I say terror bombed because the Merck chemical plant was totally missed and still uses its prewar factory halls while the ancient town centre was turned to rubble. 11,000 people burned to death.
Basically everyone living in town center was killed.
Thats four 911s in a single night and 10% of the total population of 1939.
All in all, Darmstadt lost 40% of its population in the war.
Yet 7 years after, in 1951, it had almost regained its old population number and while the city is certainly not as beautiful as before, it was habitable again.
So if there's some people showing real "manliness", it was those who still had to dig out scorched remains after 10 years when building a new house. There was no forensic examination, no memorials, no photo walls.
Just a mass grave and some small plaque in the city.
The people of Darmstadt carried on. But maybe its not a national thing and everybody today is just a little more sensible than back in WW2.
Everyone of my grandparents went through hell and back in WW2, yet still everyone managed to lead a successful life and raise a family.
Re the fact that it is all long ago, I suppose the kids born today will be the first europeans who will grow up without hearing any first hand stories of those days.
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